[456] The Beginning of Change (8)
After confessing to Miro and being rejected, Gaold became the students' laughingstock.
He wasn't a ridiculous person, but whenever students saw him they burst out laughing and tossed him mock condolences.
Gaold paid their gazes no mind.
Just as he had fully embraced the god Yor when he accepted him, he refused to twist or rationalize his own feelings.
What ate at him, though, was that the woman he treasured so deeply was spending time with the kind of person she hated most.
"Hey? Those two are stuck together again today?"
"Yeah. At the start of senior year they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Maybe they really are dating like the rumors say."
"What about Gaold? That's pathetic."
Listening to the students' whispers, Gaold watched Miro and Sein walking side by side in the park.
The rumor that the two were a couple had spread all through the graduating class.
Honestly, he didn't know why she was spending time with Sein.
'No—would it really have been any different with someone else?'
Gaold turned away with a gloomy expression.
"Tch."
He didn't want to run into either Sein or Miro.
"The Paranormal Psychics Club?"
One day, when their distance seemed to be widening, Miro and Sein made him an offer.
Gaold didn't understand why they would start a club in the middle of a hectic senior year schedule.
And a Paranormal Psychics Club?
It was hardly a club for someone who lived by faith like Gaold; it didn't seem to fit Sein either.
'Hmph. No backbone? Giving up your convictions for a woman?'
Gaold was tired of everything.
"I'm not joining. Find someone else."
Miro opened her eyes wide, surprised.
"Why? I thought you'd like it. Isn't it one reason you're at the Magic Academy?"
"I don't know. I don't even want to talk to you."
As Gaold averted his gaze and tried to walk away, Miro asked bluntly, "You don't still have feelings for me, do you?"
Gaold couldn't answer; he only puckered his lips.
Miro watched him and said, nonchalant, "Fine. If you hate it, there's nothing we can do."
Gaold's heart beat faster.
He'd thought he wouldn't care, but when she acted as if she'd give up, he felt he couldn't let that stand.
"Fine. I'll join the club."
It took him courage, and Miro smiled as if she'd expected it.
"You should've said so sooner. Now we can finally collect dues!"
"You didn't ask me to join just for that, did you?"
"Huh? No. Well, partly. Hehe."
Miro stuck out her tongue and went off to fill out the application.
'I should've just said yes from the start,' Gaold thought, a pointless regret rising.
As a member, Gaold's work was simple, brutish labor.
'Damn it, why me...?'
He had to go through every storage in the Istas magic warehouse and record coordinates.
Sein took those coordinates, ran calculations, and discussed the results with Miro.
Even in the club, Gaold always felt left out.
About a month later, a nasty rumor swept the school.
They said Miro was ignoring senior-year rules and sneaking out every night.
Some students claimed they'd seen her leave in a carriage decked with jewels even first-rank nobles could hardly afford.
The students concluded Miro had found a patron.
What she might be giving in return could be guessed without saying.
Of course, Gaold didn't believe it.
Miro was a genius. And she was free-spirited.
She might keep company with rich old men for fun, but she wasn't the kind to sell herself.
Still, the rumor snowballed, and when it degraded into claims that she was prostituting herself, Gaold couldn't stand it and went to find Sein.
"Hey, you bastard! What the hell's going on?"
Sein, who'd been filling the club blackboard with formulas, didn't flinch at Gaold's agitated entry.
"What's the matter?"
"Miro!"
Gaold shouted. "Aren't we supposed to do something to dispel these rumors? If you hear them, they make her sound like a whore!"
"So what?"
"What—what do you mean, 'so what'?"
Gaold stared at Sein, baffled.
At that moment he still had no idea how torn Miro had been.
"You idiot! Is that what you want to say now? Can you still call yourself someone who cares for Miro?"
Sein finally set down his chalk.
"Aren't you the one who doesn't trust Miro? No—deep down you probably hope she did do it. Then you might get a chance, right?"
Gaold clenched both fists until they shook.
"Are you actually dating Miro?"
"...Why should I tell you that?"
"You bastard!"
Gaold grabbed Sein by the collar and raised his fist.
Sein lifted his chin as if daring him to hit.
"How pathetic. Blinded by jealousy—are you so lost you'd abandon your convictions?"
Because the Church of Yor opposes violence and preaches love, and because Gaold had believed in Yor his whole life, he couldn't bring himself to swing his fist.
"Fine. I won't associate with people like you."
Gaold released Sein's collar coldly and left the club.
A few days later, Gaold made a decision.
Just after midnight, he followed Miro out of the school gates.
"Damn. It was real after all. What, jealous? What a cold-blooded bastard."
Where Miro was headed, a huge carriage waited.
There wouldn't be many people out at that hour, but the carriage carried itself proudly.
"Hah, someone who fears nothing, huh?"
Gaold taunted under his breath and trailed the carriage.
Magic casting outside the school was forbidden, but thinking about what Miro might be facing, this wasn't the time to argue.
Still, his stomach turned.
The rumor might be true—or it might not.
If it was true, what should he do?
If it wasn't, he'd look like a petty man snooping after someone else's girlfriend.
"Screw it. I'll deal with that later."
He decided to worry about the rest later and kept following the carriage.
It stopped in a plain quite far from the school. The bright moon made everything visible.
A carriage more luxurious than the one Miro had come in stood there, and an old man who looked nearly a hundred climbed down.
'Damn. A bent old geezer.'
Gaold's disappointment grew, but it was too early for a rash judgment.
"Today is the last day we agreed on. Have you made your decision?"
The old man was Gustav Havitz the Sixteenth.
He was emperor of the Gustav Empire and a member of the Triarchy of the Holy War.
"..."
Miro didn't answer.
A council for the Judgment of the Twenty would convene soon. It was natural that Havitz would be one of the twenty.
And the power of the Triarchy would exert a strong influence inside that council.
"You are truly beautiful. The most noble child in the world..."
He could shoulder humanity's lives and lock himself away in eternal solitude—
on the condition she became Gustav Havitz's cherished doll.
Still, it was a real choice for Miro.
Would being someone's doll be better than bearing the fate of all humanity?
"From today, you are mine, Miro..."
Havitz slithered forward like a venomous snake, his long movement closing toward Miro's neck.
Having ruled as emperor his whole life, he had few remaining desires—but Miro was different.
She was the most exalted being in the world, a unique hope beyond all humanity.
To possess her would be the supreme final amusement for a man who had ruled a world.
"You can live. You can be happy. I will give you everything..."
Even as that foul breath drew near, Miro just stared into the distance.
"You bastard!"
Just as Havitz's lips traced her neck and were about to nip her earlobe, a dull sound shifted his face.
Havitz crashed to the ground with a groan and looked up in disbelief.
A young man with an innocent face was huffing as he glared down at him.
How dare someone strike one of the faces of the Triarchy.
And where were the guards? What were they doing?
"You scum! Do you know who I am to dare this?!"
"Who? You're a perverted old creep! And Miro, I'm really disappointed. No matter the money or power, how could you be with someone like this..."
Miro blinked at Gaold. "What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean what am I doing? Obviously—!"
Gaold couldn't bring himself to be honest.
"There were strange rumors. It bothered me."
Havitz sprang up and shouted, "What worthless man is this! What are you all doing! Behead him! No—seize him alive! I'll have him tortured for three years and then killed!"
His voice echoed in the quiet but then seemed to evaporate.
Only then did the emperor sense something was wrong and grow terrified.
Miro's gaze had become ice-cold.
"Let me be clear."
"Uuuuuu..."
Seeing Miro suddenly loom immense and terrible, Havitz went pale.
In all his years he had never felt such fear.
"I refuse your proposal. I am prepared to sacrifice myself for the future of humanity."
Gaold asked, "The future of humanity? What future?"
Miro ignored him and turned away.
"And... it would be best if you kept today a secret. Even the emperor can't always get his way."
Only then did Havitz realize why no guards had appeared.
The moment she arrived, he had already been trapped in Miro's space.
"Let's go, Gaold."
"Huh? Oh—right."
Sensing the change in the atmosphere, Gaold followed just behind Miro.
Conversation fell silent for a moment, and only after stepping outside the barrier of her spatiotemporal field did Miro turn back to him.
The cold look from a moment ago was gone; she clutched her stomach and laughed brightly.
"You did great. Do you know who you just hit?"
"Tch. Why would I care? Who was it?"
"Gustav Havitz, emperor of the Gustav Empire."
"What?! The Gustav Empire?!"
Gaold, who'd tried to keep his pride to the end, finally widened his eyes in shock.
To strike the emperor—that could wipe out a family line and destabilize the kingdom.
But Miro shook her head as if to reassure him. "It's fine. No one will be able to tell."
"What on earth is going on? The future of humanity? What have you been doing?"
Miro offered a small, troubled smile.
Gaold wished he didn't know, but it was too late now.
"Can I ask one thing before you tell me?"
"Hmm?"
"If you'd known the person you hit was the emperor, would you have done the same?"
Gaold hesitated—not from doubt, but because he wanted to think it through.
"Of course. That kind of filthy man deserved it."
Miro didn't doubt him. He'd shown he could do it in the crucible of the survival tests.
"But you used violence. Doesn't that go against the Church of Yor's beliefs?"
Gaold finally looked at his raised hand and realized.
It was the first time in his life he had struck someone.
No—before that—if it had actually been the emperor, how had he gotten this far without being caught?
"Did you know I was following you?"
Miro didn't answer that and turned away.
"Let's go back to the school. There's something I need to tell you."
Gaold didn't yet know that the story he heard that night would change the next twenty years of his life completely.